


Under the Covers

by psychicmewhealer



Series: Evil Fairy Tale Series, I Guess [1]
Category: Beauty and the Beast - All Media Types, Cinderella - All Media Types, No Fandom, Original Work, Sleeping Beauty - All Media Types, Snow White - All Media Types
Genre: Abuse, Albinism, Alternate History, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Arranged Marriage, Buried Alive, Child Abuse, Childhood Trauma, Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Dark Fantasy, Dreams and Nightmares, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Face Slapping, Fairy Tale Curses, Fairy Tale Elements, Fantasy, Feminist Themes, Fractured Fairy Tale, Gen, Government Conspiracy, Historically inaccurate floor plans, Human Trafficking, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, If you only read one work by me, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kidnapping, Nightmares, No Romance, No Smut, POV Female Character, POV First Person, POV Original Character, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Past Torture, Physical Abuse, Politics, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Torture, Psychological Trauma, Slapping, Slavery, Snow, Social Commentary, Social Issues, Social Justice, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, Tags Contain Spoilers, Torture, Trauma, and she has no sense of empathy, bc she doesn't know any better, but it's super not well thought out, but not quite either, s o r t a historical fantasy and s o r t a high fantasy, she retraumatizes people, the mc is a total jerk, this devolves into breathing exercises at a certain point, this entire story is just a Triggered Lib Ranting, this is all a thinly veiled metaphor for White privilege
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:16:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 38
Words: 14,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26336296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psychicmewhealer/pseuds/psychicmewhealer
Summary: Cordelia of House Restor is sent a nightmare of another girl's life. She knows this girl magically transmitted her memories to her, and she knows it's not the last time her sleep will be infected with the tortures of this stranger's life. If this continues, she'll lose her sanity. She will resort to murder if necessary.Will she find out who sent her these dreams? What secrets will she uncover? Will she survive unscathed?--Or: what happens when all the fairy tales have a messed up baby, Cinderella is Lionel, Lumiere is Belle, and Snow White and Sleeping Beauty are both the Evil Queen
Relationships: Original Character & Original Character
Series: Evil Fairy Tale Series, I Guess [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1977856
Comments: 3
Kudos: 3





	1. Night 1

**Author's Note:**

> TW's are all in tags. Please check those before you read. Safety is paramount!!
> 
>  **If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts:**  
>  You can call 1-800-273-8255 in the US | 1.833.456.4566 in Canada (not Quebec) | 1.866.277.3553 in Quebec | 116-123 in UK & Ireland | text 45645 from 4pm - Midnight ET in Canada
> 
>  **If you are going through a crisis:**  
>  You can text HOME to 741741 (in the US & Canada), 85258 (in the UK), or 50808 (in Ireland)
> 
> Please stay safe!!! You are loved

Concealed candles light the stone tunnel. Eight to ten year old children pace around me, but I have to look up, not down, to see their exhausted and dirty faces. I must be shorter in this dream.

I tread through the tunnel, filthy with sweat, grime, and dirt. I attempt to wipe away the gunk, but my body doesn’t follow through. I guess I don’t control this body.

A lanky boy rushes across the tunnel. His strawberry blond hair, while soaked in soot, is more colorful than anything here. He glances at me. We turn away from each other.

A thought that is not my own enters my head:

> I don’t have time.

Usually, I control my body in my dreams. Now, I don’t control my thoughts, let alone my movements. I’m a spectator here, observing but not doing anything.

I run, one foot after the other. Should come easy. Lack of energy and nervousness make my legs shake.

I arrive at a well. I splash lukewarm, dirty water across my face, and use a rag to clean my body.

My reflection is in the well. I am a pallid, petite girl, with a mop of dark hair that covers my face. My thin, torn dress floats around my skeletal body.

The dream-girl sends me another foreign thought:

> I look fine. Time to go.

A thousand children, silently as dust, sprint out of a room.

> Am I late?
> 
> Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.

I sprint for a few minutes, my legs trembling. I enter the room that everyone left.

> When will the Grandfather call on me? Was my work adequate?

I stand alone in the main room with someone who might be the Grandfather. My body stops cold. His presence springs a snowstorm of dread. He has a young adult face with a strong brow, but his crow’s feet make him look ageless. He pushes off his unmoving wooden chair, arises to show his gigantic stature, and locks our eyes with an icy gaze.

> Was it good enough? Was I good enough?

He inhales.

“You were late,” he barks. He unleashes his short stick which smacks across the palm of my hand.


	2. Day 1

I hoist the sweaty blankets off my bed. Strangely, I feel no pain in my hand.

Oh. I’m awake.

I only realize I’m in my own body when I look at the mirror. The body of Cordelia, daughter of the Count of Restorshire. Eleven years old. My face is square, framed by my long, dark, double-braided hair. My skin isn’t filthy and dead like the dream-girl’s. I have life in my light beige complexion. I’m no longer thinking about how I have to look presentable before this Grandfather figure, so I'm not infected with the girl’s thoughts.

Now I have to find who the hell gave me that dream.

> Hello!

Oh, no.

> I made you me for a night. Did you like it?

I gulp.

> Don’t worry. I’ll keep sending you my memories for a while.

My face turns white like hers.

> See you tonight!


	3. Night 2

My palm throbs as I sweep the chimney. The soot flies into my cut, adding a sting to the throbbing.

> Don’t groan, don’t groan, don’t groan.

A squeak escapes my mouth.

Someone shouts, “Shut up! We’re working!”

When I finish, my wound is invisible under the dust.

> Don’t be late to inspection. You know what happened last time.

I descend to the floor. A pale, weedy, freckled boy stares at me, his sapphire eyes and sharp chin pointing at me like swords at a helpless victim.

“Shut up when you work,” he sneers in his hard accent from the northern mountains. “It’s a disturbance. You don’t want us to get a flogging, do you?”

If I were controlling the body, I would tell him that he should get a flogging for talking to me like that.

I dip in the nearby well to look presentable before the Grandfather. The strawberry blond boy rips a rag off the bottom of his shirt and ties it around my mutilated palm.

“Make sure he doesn’t see the cloth,” he warns.

I may be late for inspection if I stay longer, so I keep my reply concise. “Thank you,” I whisper.

As I pace away, I ask him for his name.

“Lucian,” he replies.


	4. Day 2

Ellis is taller than me; nevertheless, he looks up, not down, at my face.

“I want you to find someone. He has red-and-blonde hair and blue eyes. His name’s Lucian. Take him to the castle for questioning. I need information from him.”

A few seconds of silence.

“Yes, my lady.”

“You are dismissed.” I wave my hand. He leaves.

Half an hour later, a whip cracks. A horse whinnies and gallops.

It’s the King’s Day, the twentieth of November. It’s a less exciting holiday. The peasants will go outside, yell, and drink more beer than usual, but its story is underwhelming: about 150 years ago, in 1256, the Queen got executed for trying to assassinate the King.

That’s the story. My family isn’t here to make me celebrate, so I’ll read some Bible. Maybe it will distract me. Hopefully, I won’t fall asleep.


	5. Night 3

“You’re asking for trouble at this point.” 

The Scottish mountain boy sprints in front of me. By the tenth lap, my legs are throbbing and jellylike.

Why am I running this much? It’s generic training for everyone so you can get sorted into the correct category.

What does that mean?

She doesn’t send me the answer.


	6. Day 17

Lucian’s face is stern, his sixteen-year-old face clean-shaven. A hood covers the same strawberry blond tufts of hair he had in the dreams.

“He was outside the Lord’s castle at Gelvishire, my lady,” Ellis explains.

I don’t dismiss Ellis. He knows too much.

I look down on Lucian. Lucian looks up at me.

“You owe me information.”

“Yes, my lady,” Lucian answers.

“Someone sent me a dream with you in it.”

Lucian nods.

Ellis stands on duty at the corner to ensure nothing goes awry.

“My first question is, do you know someone called the Grandfather?”

Lucian opens his mouth, but no sound comes out.

I allow him lodging at the castle. I don’t know his status, but hopefully, the arrangements will suit him. Food awaits him.

“Make yourself comfortable. When you’re ready to tell me anything, alert Ellis.” I point my head to Ellis. He bows.

“Thank you, my lady,” Lucian says.

“You’re dismissed.” I flick my hand, and the doors fly open.


	7. Night 18

“Clean it until I can see my reflection in it.” That was the order. Not that it’s possible for a chimney. 

He never groups anyone consistently in order that we do not have relationships with each other. For what reason, I don’t know. In what context, even less. All I know is Lucian can’t be near me.

The process is mind-numbing and impossible, and I think that’s the point. What they are numbing our minds to, I don’t know. When I attempt searching for an answer, I reach none.

After the hours of cleaning, a “GET DOWN” emanates from the floor and we all sprint down to where the Grandfather is evaluating our work.

I wash in the well.

Two children, one with strawberry blonde hair, one with brown hair, and both pale-skinned like myself. It’s Lucian and the Scottish boy, together. The Scottish boy rips a rag off his shirt and wraps it around Lucian’s arm.

I ask for his name, and he says “Philip,” but also to “piss off.”

I say, “Thank you for helping my friend.”

He replies, “It’s dangerous to have friends around here.”


	8. Day 18

“Do you know a Philip?”

Lucian says nothing. Of course. Not like more questions will help, or like I’ll get any information out of him, but something tells me to keep him here. It’s not that goddamn transmitter. It must be his twinkling eyes, luscious hair, sparkling freckles, and jutting cheekbones. Or the possibility of information I’ll never get.

The pain returns to me: the fermented wounds in my palms, the fear of a glance from the Grandfather, the hopelessness of the stark chambers.

She didn’t just steal my sleep. She stole my sanity. Better eat away the pain. Besides, food can warm up a man.

“Eat with me,” I order.

Ellis stands in the corner to make sure nothing goes wrong.

“These dreams, they’ve been stopping me from sleeping,” I say to Lucian.

He says nothing back.

“I don’t know what to do. I’ve gotten so tired. I haven’t slept properly for days.”

Still nothing.

“I hate the person who’s giving me these dreams. I want her to DIE.” I smash my hands on the table. Beer spills on the tablecloth.

Something appears in Lucian’s eyes as he locks his gaze with mine.

“My lady, if anyone tries to hurt you…” He swallows.

“I’d kill them, no questions asked.”

He cares. A start. Butterflies attack my stomach.


	9. Night 26

I’m cleaning the chimney again. My arm is a machine, but not well-oiled. Every scrub is excruciating, but

> I must continue.

I still don’t know what I’m training for.

Most of these dreams feature an omnipresent numbness. This dream gives me clear hunger instead. My arm forces itself to clean through the hunger pangs.

> I am a machine. I serve. I am a machine. I serve. I am a machine. I serve.

I’m trying to permeate my dream brain for valuable information, but the mechanical repetition stops me. Did the fog grow between my dreams? Is this a new way to keep me from knowing what I need?

I reach into my mind through the fog of the phrases, but going deeper than the fog feels like touching an open wound. I retract my investigation.

I look down ― and keep cleaning, but I saw something shiny and red and I can’t look down but I need to know what it is ―

I look down again. A small sphere.

Her thoughts question if it’s food, but my hunger pangs are debilitating and there’s no reason to ―

The apple is seeping into my tongue and mouth, into every bud and corner. My teeth crunch on the sweet, bubbly crisp. It’s meeting teeth and gums I didn’t know I had

the pleasure

> I am a machine. I serve. I am a machine. I serve. I am a machine. I serve.

Pain and powerlessness and emptiness and nothingness.

The room is dark, but a little light cracks through the walls. I’d love to feel the stone or smell and taste the air, but reality is pain, blood, fear. The rhythm of the hits isn’t grounding as much as it is dreamlike, ethereal in a nightmarish way. Whatever it is, whether a whip or rod or hand hit me, I’m numb.

The physical pain isn’t the worst of it ― because I’ve betrayed someone, I’m a disappointment ―

The Grandfather is behind me, in front of me, everywhere around me ―

He sees all. He knows all. I am a machine.


	10. Day 26

My blanket is drenched in sweat.

She’s screwing with me. She’s in my head.

I’m startled at my own body. There is no throbbing. No scars.

Yes, that’s me. Cordelia.

“Lunch is coming, my lady” was the cry from downstairs. The grandfather clock in the living room across from me says it’s noon. I must have overslept.

Too many things remind me of her.

Apple-less breakfast is okay. I don’t eat apples often, anyway. Thinking about apples ends my appetite. 

My meal consists of bread, spiced poultry, figs, and more bread. It inflates my stomach more than filling me up.

She just wanted to start eating…

She stole my sleep and my sanity. She can’t steal my food.

Breathe and sense. Then I’ll relax.

The round oak table feels rough under the silk tablecloth. China plates wait for my family, who is settling an agreement in Miershire out west. My cousins judge me from a painting of the House of Restor across from me.

More to feel. Silver utensils? The stone floor under my bare feet? The smell of paprika? The candles, the cold candles, on the chandelier…

Like those candles, but these are open, those were concealed…

Keep feeling!

Um…the great hall seems large. More paintings, a lute and a clavichord, a blood red carpet…

No, not that, don’t think that, don’t ―

Breathe in, breathe out.

The dream was a dream. This is real.


	11. Night 27

Cleaning the chimney. Again. My arm is a machine, but not well-oiled.

Isn’t this the same dream as last ―

> I am a machine. I serve. I am a machine. I serve. I am a machine. I serve.

No, not the fog. No, no, no, no, no, no.

I look down. It’s the apple again, waiting on the chilly stone for my bare feet to jump down and abscond it.

Despite last time, and that it was a stupid decision, it happens again. But now I ― no, she ― she gives me this overwhelming pleasure again; it’s unlike anything, nothing can…

It hurts no less than last time. It’s the same neverending excruciation, from beginning to nonexistent conclusion. The pain gets so intense that her psyche floats from the ground. Or I’m not floating, but my vision is. Is my vision floating? Am I floating? What am I?

What is real? What is fake? Where do I stop and she begins?

Where does reality stop and the dream begins?


	12. Day 27

“Cordelia, Cordelia, Cordelia,” she exhales in a singsong voice. “You look tired.” She settles on the velvet ottoman in the great hall.

I groan. “What was your meeting about?”

My father pulls an oak chair from the dining table. “Political matters. You shouldn’t worry about it.” He sat.

“Was it about ―”

“We weren’t finding you a husband in Miereshire. The shire has an agricultural output of basically nothing. A marriage to Miereshire wouldn’t help you.”

“What were you doing?”

“I don’t know if you’d get it.”

“I’m eleven, Father. I’ll understand.”

He sighs. “When you’re old enough to understand the kingdom, you’d have married.”

My mother interjected. “Your father is right. You’re intelligent, but this matter is difficult to comprehend.”

“I don’t comprehend it. No one does,” my father says.

“Does it involve foreign policy?” I ask.

“Sort of.”

“Does it involve Spain?”

“Maybe.”

“Does it involve Egypt?”

“Cordelia ―”

“Does it involve cinnamon? Is it going to get cheaper? Do I get to eat more cinnamon?”

“Stop,” he snapped. “Don’t ask me about this. I don’t understand it, and neither will you.”

“Your family will be eating,” my mother announces. “If you want to catch up with us, then come to the table.”

“What’d you do over the month and a half?” Harold asks me before stuffing his mouth with beef.

“I got better,” I say. “A few herbs and Hail Marys, and the nausea was gone after about a week.”

“And then what?”

“I studied.” It’s half true. I did study. “What did you do, Rick?” I turn to my nine-year-old brother.

“Read. Play music.” Rick twists his fork.

“Obviously. And you jousted, Harold?”

Harold groans. “I wanted to.”

“You got betrothed?”

He nods. “Her name’s Wilhelmina. She’s from Gelvishire.”

Gelvishire? “How’s she?”

“Twelve. She has a pretty nose, and she sounds like a congested chipmunk.”

Mother turns towards him.

“She seems okay,” he corrected himself, “She serves the best biscuits. She gardens. She has a garden and an orchard outside her manor.”

“What does she grow?”

“Flowers. Bluebells. I didn’t pay attention.”

Of course, Harold.

He interrupts my thought. “She grows excellent apples.”

My vision is clouding up and I’m floating ― what do I do?

What’s my name? Cordelia.

What do my hands feel? Hard. Cold. Wood. Chair. Table.

Table.

“Cordelia, we lost you,” my father says. “Is anything wrong?”

“No.” 

I turn to Harold. “Did Wilhelmina say anything about magic?”

“No, why do you ask?”

“No reason.”

“Cordelia, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Can I have a back rub? You give the best back rubs, Harold.”


	13. Night 28

It’s been two nights. Same dream. I’m not doing this again. How do I get out?

I can’t take any actions of my own in this dream. I’m experiencing someone else’s life; I’m not making her decisions for her.

The only way to get out is to understand what she’s feeling.

I’m cleaning ― she’s cleaning ― and I’m hungry. Hungry enough to eat a house.

I’ve got pains in my stomach, so she’s got them. The hunger pangs feel like a rusty knife against my intestines.

At this point, the dream would have continued to the next part where I ― she eats the apple, but the chimney uncleans itself. I have to do another round.

The dream wants me to take more time thinking about this. I must be doing this right.

What else do I feel? She’s repressing it well.

She’s feeling stinging pain from a long cut running across both her knees. Her feet struggle to make an unnatural arch. Her toes are tight and feel as if they are being pulled. A throbbing continues from between her legs.

This is getting unpleasant. Does she really want me to think that? Is that part of the torture?

It’s the only way I might not have this dream tomorrow night. I have to keep going.

Most of the pain comes from the back. Stinging and throbbing pains emanate from crooked lines throughout the back. The shoulders feel disconnected from the torso as they’ve been pulled back and down. Like a polite lady’s.

Wilhelmina’s?

There’s more to dissect physically, but I’m not an idiot. Not all pain is physical. I have to get messy in her head.

Here goes.

The Grandfather appears as less a man and more an omnipresence. Most of the thoughts and feelings pertain to pleasing him, and being a good girl; not getting hurt by him, because he gives food and shelter and without him I’d be nobody and nothing.

Something’s missing. Where is this thought? I have to keep going.

Is Lu OK? Is Philip OK? Am I going to have to take hits for them? Give them extra helpings? When can we meet? Without getting punished? Where? Are they getting hurt by the Grandfather? Am I helping them enough? Am I good enough for them? No, of course not; Lu ripped his shirt for me, Lu gave me extra helpings when he was hungry, Lu risks everything every second for me. And Philip, he was a prickly pear first, but he’s got my back; cleaning the extra area when I’m passing out and can’t finish, lying in the Grandfather’s face for me, covering me again and again.

That’s what’s missing. I can’t find any thoughts about her, because she never thought about herself.

Eureka.

She’s not giving me these dreams because I’m of any importance. She’s giving me these dreams because she's hurting.


	14. Day 28

I’m me, in my bed. I’d like to keep it that way. The realization must have woken me up. I’m doing something right, then. I don’t want to think about the dreams now. But don’t I have to?

“Lu?”

Ellis and Lucian run to my right bedside. Ellis brings a short stool for Lucian. Lucian sits down.

“It was mostly the same as the last couple nights. But a little different. I got to know what she was feeling. A lot of the physical pain. Some of the emotional pain.” My eyes bead over.

“My lady―”

Lucian sweats.

“She was thinking about you and Philip.”

He remains sitting up straight, holding on his stool. His sweat pours through his clothing.

“She was hurting.” I whine.

His head bangs on the floor. He cups his hands over the front of his head. He’s face down, laying there, still, silent. His face looks like it’s filling with boiling water. He’s trying to crunch up in a little ball, but something stops him. He fails to repress tears.

“Lu?”

He’s not moving.

“Ellis?”

He’s gone.

“Lu? You’re beautiful. Get your feet on the floor.”

He looks at me and stops.

“Get on the stool. I love you. I love you. I’m not going to do anything to you.” I clench my teeth.

He’s not listening. 

“Get on the stool. I love you. You’re beautiful. Nothing is going to happen to you if you get on the stool.”

Wait. What is he feeling?

Physically, I don’t know. Emotionally, I can guess. He was crying, but he was trying to get himself to stop. He’s not crying anymore now, but he’s breathing fast and trapped in a fetal position.

What does this remind me of that I’ve felt?

Maybe that time at the table I shook as I couldn’t stop thinking about those apples. Maybe when Harold told me about Wilhelmina.

What did I need then? What does he need now?

I slap him in the face. He’s still not moving.

It’s mealtime at noon. Mother, Father, Rick, Harold, and I say our prayers to the All-Father of Life before we eat His fruit.

The table’s got salted beef, trout, and garlic bread. A platter of fruit is passed around. I eye the apples a second too long before passing them rightward, biting my tongue in punishment.

My father speaks. “Elizabeth and Frederich are visiting soon from Prussia. They’ll be here in a couple of months for the wedding. She’s expecting a second child.”

“Our  _ second  _ Junker cousin,” Harold says. “Mother, there’s no excuse not to go to Prussia now.”

“Another time. Now, we’ve got to prepare for our newest in-laws. The House of Gelvy will be here in a fortnight.”

Oh no oh no oh no

“Rick, stop reading at the table,” my father says.

Rick groans and obliges. He leaves the table to read on the ottoman next to the great hall.

I open the door to my room. Lu is still laying down, curled up in a ball, sweating.


	15. Night 36

Your loyalty is to the King and the King only. I am merely a messenger, and so are ― this part is muffled…

The Grandfather’s been talking for hours. Trying to find the muffled or obviously hidden parts of the dreams is counterproductive, so I’ll figure out what she’s feeling.

The stone floor is cold. Freezing, especially for a skeletal girl like this maybe-ten-year-old I’m dreaming about. I’m trying to sit up straight, fearing the abstract consequence that will come if I don’t. I’m hungry and tired, so I’m shaky; at least I would be if I was allowed. The pain I had in my last dream remains. I’m trying to arch my feet and hold my back up and shoulders back, I’ve got a throbbing wound between my legs, the palms of my hands are aching, and the burning lines on my back are still there. A recent wound just appeared on my stomach, probably for giving my helpings to Lu and Philip.

The emotional state is the same as well. I feel like a child still, although I’m almost of marriageable age by now. The Grandfather is still my everything, and his word is still gospel, at least in practice. Something isn’t right with life, but it’s less a concrete complaint and more an overarching knot in my stomach. I feel urged to punch myself in the gut for thinking so.

If I take my gaze off the Grandfather, all hell will break loose, so there’s no way to signal to Lu and Philip anything about more helpings from the food coming soon.

...so the King must be obeyed. His word is truth and you are his instruments. You are his machines; you do not question or gripe, you obey.

The word “machine” breaks me out into a panic, but I can’t show it.

Is that clear?

The Grandfather is more well-dressed than us children, but he has sweat and grime on him that must seem negligible to us. Obviously, he’s cleaner both because of and to display his dominant social role. But why does he still have grime on him? And in the middle of displaying his dominance, why does he bring up the King as superior?

Yes, Grandfather, we say.


	16. Day 36

Whenever I eat, I am reminded of the forbidden fruit, the one she stole from me. My blood boils; my head floats; my knuckles tense. Regardless, the fish I'm having is scrumptious. Way too many spices. But delicious.

Wilhelmina’s coming in a couple days. Not only does she go by a German name in an English shire, she grows an apple orchard in her home in said shire which also happens to be the shire that Lucian was found in. Are there any more red flags?

“Harold…”

“Yeah?”

“What’s Wilhelmina like?”

“She doesn’t talk until you bring up gardening. Then she will never stop talking. She pulled me into her ―”

“Tulip and apple garden, yes. I heard. What does she look like?”

“Why are you so curious about her? You’ll meet her later.”

“I need to know. What’s Wilhelmina look like?”

“Very attractive. Very curvaceous. Pale, like a demon sucked the life out of her. She has light blue eyes. She’s short. She’s got white hair somehow. Her grandmother thinks she’s possessed by the Devil.”

The Devil. Fair comparison.

“Her grandmother?”

“Yeah, she was born in Alsace-Lorraine, but her mother died in childbirth and her father died soon after, so she was given to her maternal grandparents in Gelvishire, and they raised her ever since.”

Oh. Oh. Oh.

“By grandparents, you mean including grandmother and grandfather, yes?”

He squints. “Who else?”

Oh my God sweet Mary mother of Jesus God. 

I spit out my food.

Wilhelmina was raised by the Grandfather.


	17. Day 38

Wilhelmina’s coming.

I’m at the entrance. I look at the tall arch instead of her face. The stone floor is cold. I regret not wearing shoes.

Wilhelmina curtsies. She’s in a frilly floral dress, a light pink fabric with green threads growing on it like vines. She makes me look poor in my plain linen. Wilhelmina’s got the same pallid skin and demure height as the transmitter. The only glaring difference is her weight and her straight white hair tied in a tall bun above her face. But magic, money, and any apocathery can take care of that.

Lu hides in my room. He’s sweating an ocean. I tell him not to stink things up, but he says nothing back. 

He’s growing a beard. It frames his angular face well.


	18. Night 39

She’s asleep. If she wasn’t cuddling her blanket on her side, I’d mistake her for a ghost. Her hair is spread out across her pillow. 

I’ve got the knife in my hand. Her bare neck is begging to be stabbed. I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna do it. 

Ten.

Breathe in…

Nine.

Breathe out.

Eight.

But the dreams,

Seven.

No more of the dreams.

Six.

But the dreams are

Five.

I’m purging an evil from the world. I swallow.

Four.

My knife is shaking

Three.

The dreams are her memories

Two.

The evil will be gone. I clench my teeth.

One.

_ But they’re her memories _


	19. Day 39

“Cordelia, your name is?”

“I’d say it’s pleasant to meet you, but I’d be lying.”

Wilhelmina furrows her eyebrows.. “You told me to talk to you. Why?”

“I tried to kill you last night.”

Wilhelmina pushes her stool back. “Why are you telling me? Should I be here? What’s going on?” Her soprano turns shrill. “Is Harold trying to kill me too?”

“You know why I tried to kill you.”

“If it’s not because of my complexion, I don’t know what you’re talking about. And I don’t plant anything poisonous in my garden. Well. I won’t feed anyone anything poisonous.”

“You know. The dreams?”

“What?”

“You don’t know?”

“I don’t know about any of this.”

“How do you explain the Grandfather?”

“You mean my grandfather? He is the sweetest man;” Wilhelmina insists. “When my parents died, he took me in with open arms; he gave me a home, and food, and an education, and now an okay husband in Harold, even though I have to be a servant to him or whatever it is and I’m not okay with it but it’s passable but anyway my grandfather is a ray of light and only I’m allowed to insult him.” She smacked her lips. “Did I ever tell you the story about when he drank too much at my brother’s wedding and― ” she chuckled ― “he called my grandmother George?”

Her chuckle makes my blood boil. 

“And what about your complexion?”

Her smile disappears. “I don’t need more people thinking I’m demonic because of my color.” She rolls her eyes and sighs. “It’s albinism. I was born with it.”

“How do you explain your convenient location where Lucian was found?”

Her strong brow furrows. “Who’s Lucian?”

The lack of a nervous breakdown at Lucian’s name tells me it’s not her. “You’re not the right girl. Good thing I didn’t kill you, then.”

Wilhelmina’s eyes dart back and forth. 

Well. This doesn’t mean she has no connections. She does live in Gelvishire, after all.

“Lucian? Wilhelmina wants to meet you,” I call. 

“No,” Wilhelmina whimpers. 

“Have a seat,” I call. I pull out a seat for Lucian.

“Lucian?”

He’s behind my bed, pallid and sweating. 

“M-m-m-m―” he’s trying to say ― “my-my l-l-la-la-lady,” he bows to her. “I―”

“That’s where he went!” Wilhelmina says. “That’s where the missing guard is!”

“Ellis―”

“My lady―”

My face reddens. “Why didn’t you tell me? This is vital! This is huge! This ―”

“My lady, I ―”

“Now we know what she was training for! Well, women aren’t guards that I know of, but―”

“M―”

“You betrayed me. You kept Lucian’s origins from me that I could have used to help find this transmitter. I almost had to kill an innocent girl for that.

“You should be ashamed. You’ve failed me.”

Ellis’s countenance reddens. He looks down and back at me. 

“My lady, I’m sorry. I beg for your mercy.” His eyes glaze over, but when I look at them, he lowers his face.

He continues, “Would my lady accept my reason, however inadequate, for my omission?”

I nod.

“My lady,” Ellis whispers, “I sought to shield you from a secret larger than you can handle. If you uncovered this secret, you and your world would shatter..

“My lady, you’re not ready to know everything.”


	20. Night 40

We had just finished a “training,” whatever that is. I think she did everything right, whatever “everything right” entails. Regardless, she retains her baggage. 

“Psst―” Lu whispers. He tilts his head to the right, towards one of the uniform stone chambers. He mouths, “No one’s in there.”

She and Philip stand close to each other, but not conspicuously close. Despite the soot on him, his sapphire eyes are pristine, and his ringlets perfectly frame his elflike face.

While the flock of children makes their way through the corridor, she, Lu, and Philip sneak out of the barrage and turn right instead of straight. Once she turns right again, I see a door for this room Lu is talking about. Despite the lock on the door, it’s ajar.

It smells less sweaty than the other rooms, and specks of candlelight barely illuminate the space. None of that matters; they’re all here together. She might even be smiling.

“What do you want to do here?” Philip asks.

“Can we touch?” she asks.

The dirty, emaciated children gather in a warm embrace. They are all aware of what might happen to them if they are found out, but stacked up to each other, the punishments are irrelevant. Love radiates. This is love.

“What do we call this place?” Philip mutters.

There’s a hope that this might be the one place ―

“The Sanctuary,” she blurts out.


	21. Day 40

Wilhelmina didn’t really agree to join this meeting; it was my pestering that sold it for her. She and Lu sit at stools by my bed.

“It was the first dream that wasn’t completely awful.” I sit up in my bed. “We ― they ― you were afraid, and you were probably going to get punished because you weren’t training for whatever guard thing, but it was beautiful, in a way, since you all rose above the filth. She called the place the Sanctuary because you found protection with each other.”

“No one knows what happens in the Sanctuary.”

I wasn’t expecting a reply from Lucian, let alone such an automatic, quick one. His face is turning white, and I can feel his heartbeat from my bed. He’s caught up in his head. Last time this happened, I didn’t snap him out of it. It might be best to let him be.

To break the awkward silence, I ask Wilhelmina, “You didn’t tell your grandparents about Lucian, did you?”

“No.” Wilhelmina snorts. “It’s going to be so funny. They don’t know where he is, and they’re going to drive themselves crazy, meanwhile I know he’s in your house hiding ― because you took him!” Wilhelmina laughs. “Besides, now I get to see him up close.”

“He’s pretty, right?”  
“Not when the blood has left his face and he’s lost consciousness, but normally, yes.”

“Why else would I keep him here? For information on the dreams? He’s not delivering muuch on that front. Well, he’s kind of useful. He knows details he’s not telling me, but he’s reacting strongly to the particulars in my dreams enough that I know they mean something.”

“So you’re keeping him here because ―”

“― he’s attractive.”

“And now that you know ―”

“― he’s a guard, I’m not going to get rid of his lodging. There are other guards. He’ll be replaced.”

“Your parents don’t know he’s here?”

“No. You didn’t tell anyone I tried to murder you in your sleep?”

“No. You’re not going to try again, are you?”

“What motivation would I have? You’ve been useful.”

“Thanks?”

“We’ll talk tomorrow morning. Bye. Get out.”


	22. Night 41

They’re in the Sanctuary again. Whether or not anyone is watching the three is beside the point. They should be training. For what? I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter because Lu and Philip are more important than anything.

They don’t introduce their embrace with a preface or terms and conditions. They don’t introduce it with anything at all. When the three jumble together and create one flesh, they are no less terrified of what will happen to them. The stone walls and floors don’t erase from existence, but they are rendered insignificant.

Philip mumbles, “You’re better than anything in the world.” There’s a low bar for that here, but she takes it. His accent has diluted over the years, creating a beautiful hodgepodge that can’t be boxed as Scottish or English. I look into his sapphire eyes, whose despair has been replaced with hope.

“May I interrupt?” Lu asks.

“I didn’t want to say anything before, but the touching reminds me too much of the Grandfather. Can we stop?”

She pulls out of the embrace, apologizing profusely and relaxing her wrists from a flexed position.

She only would have flexed her wrists in an embrace where she didn’t want her wrists touched.

Because when I was about to wake up, the Grandfather smacked the palm of my hand.

The Sanctuary is no sanctuary from myself.


	23. Day 41

“Lucian, I’m sorry I slapped you in the face a while ago. I thought about it last night and I realized it was awful, especially for you. I’ll be sure not to slap you in the face again.”

Lu looks bewildered. I, too, can’t believe I’m saying this to a guard, but I only knew he was a guard for a couple days now, and treating him like a guard seems foreign to me.

“Wilhelmina?”

She peeks her head in from the door.

“I haven’t officially apologized to you. I am sorry. I deeply regret my decision to attempt your murder.

“To either of you, Wilhelmina or Lucian, if you need anything from me to make it up to you, let me know.”

Wilhelmina relaxes her shoulders. “I’m not ready to forgive you yet,” she says, “but maybe in a while.”

“Lu?”

He’s not catatonic, just confused.

“Ellis, get him some beer.” Ellis obliges.

“I’m sorry I got upset with you. I understand why you didn’t tell me about your meeting. You wanted me to be safe, not to worry about the politics of the house, for me to live my life. But I’m caught up in secrets now, and I need you to tell me everything you learned in Miereshire.”

Mother furrows her eyebrows and leans forward on the couch. “Cordelia, dear…” she leans back and looks up. “You won’t tell anyone?”

“I won’t.”

She breathes. I pull my ottoman closer. We double check no one’s listening.

“You know what happened on the King’s Day?”

“Yes, why?”

“The Queen was from Castile, Queen Maria. A noble visitor brought bodyguards with him. Queen Maria conspired the assassination with those bodyguards and her royal guard. She prepared the King particularly strong beer that night, and the guards under her control obfuscated security logistics, so no one guarded the King’s bedroom. After the rebellion, the king made a deal with the nobility. None of us know what the deal is, but it’s still active.”

“A secret deal.”

“Yes. Your mother and father and the Lord and Lady of Miereshire are trying to find out what it is.”

“What information do you have so far?”

“All we know is that since King James’s second marriage, we have never known where any of his queens are from, as if they’ve been magically sprouting out of nowhere.

“We’re concerned that our kingdom will suffer from the lack of alliances. We didn’t want you to get involved in secrets too big. I love you so much.”

“I love you too.”


	24. Night 42

“Are you fine touching?” she asks Philip. 

“Mostly,” he says.

“Can we touch faces?” she asks him. 

“Where?”

“Here.” She points to her forehead. 

He thinks about it and steps towards her. He locks a piercing gaze into her eyes. 

“Yes,” he says. 

When they touch foreheads, they reach a level of unity beyond the ordinary. If this were a dusted storybook from Rick’s bedroom, it would be the truest love story of the ages. Blood rushes to her face. It feels warm and cozy with him, like she’s floating into the perfection of his crystalline eyes, like she’s steady on his bedrock of loyalty, like she’s being immolated in the flames of passion.

She might ask if any other parts of his body are touchable, but it would involve the palms of her hands. And she also probably hasn’t seen kissing ever in her life, at least in this place, so it wouldn’t be a viable option to express physical affection.

I’m getting good at this, aren’t I?


	25. Day 42

Lu and Wilhelmina have fallen into a steady habit of sitting at stools at my bedside when I wake up.

“Lu?”

Lucian nods.

“I’m not going to ask about your past. I have nothing else to ask. You’ve had enough of my probing. I’m sorry about all of it. It wasn’t just unhelpful, it was excruciating for you. And you look nice.”

“Thank you, my lady.”

“At this point, I might not even mind the dreams anymore,” I blurt out. 


	26. Night 43

The first feeling is pain. Throbbing old pains from long before, and sharp pains from moments ago. They are in lines across her back, inside her legs, betwixt her arms, behind her neck; embedded in her muscles, in her bones, in her soul.

The first sounds are cracks. Cracks of a whip synchronized with the rebirthing of pains on her skin. But she doesn’t connect them, not as a phenomenon or a causal relation. They are isolated happenings in a hostile world.

Then I see the scene. The floor is stone, stained with her blood. There’s a corner far away from her face, but I’m unsure how far. I recognize the spacious, barely lit room.

It’s the Sanctuary.

Not anymore.

The rest of the senses rush to me.

I am a machine, I serve, I am a machine, I serve, she mutters repeatedly. The words mean nothing at this point, but they penetrate her subconscious.

“You think I didn’t know about the meetings? About your unsanctioned relationships?”

I am a machine. I serve. I am a machine. I serve, I respond. 

Crack, crack, crack.

Crack, crack, crack. 

“What do you think of them now? Of those you love? Of love?”

I am a machine. I serve. I am a machine. I serve.

Crack, crack, crack.

She’s gargling. Blood is begging to come out of her mouth. The words stop spilling.

“Machine!”

Crack, crack, crack, crack.

I am a machine. I serve. I am a machine. I serve.

Is Lu okay? Is Philip okay? What will happen when they ― 

Crack. crack, crack, crack.

“I can tell what you’re thinking! What are you?”

I am a machine. I serve. I am a machine. I serve.

Crack, crack, crack.

“What is all you strive for? What is your goal? Your purpose?”

I am a machine. I serve. I am a machine. I serve.

“What’s your name?”

I am a machine. I serve. I am a machine. I serve.

“Who are you?”

I am a machine. I serve. I am a machine. I serve.

It’s been hours. Time has dissolved. I have dissolved. I am nothing. I am a machine. I serve.

Crack.

Crack.

Crack.

“You’re the Queen. Go that way.” He points to a trapdoor to his left. She follows. 

Her thoughts are silent. I am nothing. I am a machine.


	27. Day 43

I can’t get up. The feeling of anything on my skin is a violation. My blanket itches me. My pillow aches. I can’t feel anything, but I can’t move. A part of me feels this dream, this reality, over and over. Hopefully, Lu and Wilhelmina will ―

“You might want to see Lucian,” Wilhelmina says. 

“Where is he?” I mumble. 

“His room. He’s not feeling well.”

“Ellis, pull me out.” I reach my arm out, and he pulls me out of bed. 

When Wilhelmina said Lucian was unwell, she meant it. His skin is the color of what the insides of his eyes normally would be, a shiny, cold white, but his eyes are a loud, bloodshot red. His neck is stiff and immobile. His body is too, stuck in a guard’s position; arms at his sides, his right wrist carrying an imaginary spear, with his legs slapped together. He’s exercising his eyes, crying an ocean at least. When I get closer, I hear him breathing fast, fast, fast, with shallow, quiet breaths, like he’s slipping off of life’s cliff, desperate to remain.

“When you woke up, he got pains in his neck and back,” Wilhelmina says. “After a couple minutes, he hurt so much he couldn’t move. Now that you’re here, his eyes are red and his skin is white. I don’t know why.”

When I look at his eyes, I flinch. The blood and tears coming out of them give me a fraction of his pain which I don’t want to feel. I stare into them more.

“Can I touch your face?”

Lu nods his eyes yes, possibly under duress.

He’s in a precarious position, leaning straight from the edge of his stool to the floor. I’m afraid to move him, as budging anything the might make him fall.

I caress my fingertips from his temple to his cheek. He’s hot. Really hot, hotter than a fever. But it isn’t skin that’s hot. I don’t feel skin. I feel wax.

“Wilhelmina…”

She looks up.

“I think he’s turning into a candle.”

“What?”   
“I think he’s turning into a candle.”

“Am I hearing you wrong, or is this part of the magic you were talking about?”

Lucian is creaking.

The only light from the dream world came from concealed candles. Other than Philip, Lu was her only light. No matter how the Grandfather tried to cover him up, he still illuminated her existence. In her twisted way, the transmitter is showing me Lucian as she saw him.

“Do you need me to get you on the bed?” Wilhelmina asks Lucian.

Lucian enthusiastically nods his eyeballs up and down at her.

Wilhelmina carries him from his precarious position onto his bed a few feet away. “He’s lighter when he’s wax, you know,” she says, and realizes she’s crying.

She tucks him into bed for his final sleep.

Lucian mutters, “M-m-m-m-my lady…”

I’m on his right side. Wilhelmina’s on his left, sniffing snot.

He looks straight at Wilhelmina.

“Th-th-than―”

A candle takes his place. No fairy dust or poofy noises lends him a fanfare. No sparkles beautify his death. One moment was Lucian, one moment a candle. No in between.

Wilhelmina runs out. I’m alone, examining the relic that was once a man. It’s the same icy white he was before. The patterns of wax running down the candle continue those of Lucian’s tears running down his face. But his face is erased from this candle, burning as if it was just another one I’d find concealed in stone in those dream corridors.

I blow it out, carry it into my room, and leave it on my bedside table. Even though an unlit candle is useless, I can’t have this candle destroyed.

No more of his face to stare at ― jutting cheekbones, sharp jaw, hair colored like an unbridled flame, eyes that evoked a clear sky, and a tall, thin figure that I want to pine for and touch.

But Cordelia, shut up. He was a person, not a thing. A person that felt, remembered, pained. Much of his pain is my fault. I kidnapped him out of patrol, and smacked him into my home, and bombarded him with the pain he felt not so long ago, prying open old wounds, and I’m criticizing the transmitter ― the Queen ― for giving me a taste of her pain, and acting like I loved him? I never loved him! He was nothing more to me than a sack of meat.

A machine. A candle. A means to an end.

This transformation is not only about how the Queen saw Lucian. It’s how I saw Lucian. An object. A machine.

Is that what I am? A dehumanizer? Because that’s what I’ve been doing. Because I’m the center of the universe, when I had those dreams, I have the right to stab Wilhelmina in the neck and slap Lucian in the face and bring them to my bedside every morning so I can talk about how awful my life is because I had to deal with a fraction of someone else’s pain.

My face is disgusting. My nose clogs with snot. The tears on my cheeks taste salty. I want sugar to numb it all. I smash my face into my pillow again, and again, and again, as if it will undo the pain I’ve caused. 

The Queen must be torturing me because I deserve it.

I muffle wails under my pillow.

After a couple minutes, I can’t get myself to cry anymore. When I turn from my bed, no one is there to check on me, or ask if I’m dying of thirst because I’m acting like it, or say, “Are you done praying? Lunch is ready.”

Except for Ellis, in the corner, standing guard, making sure nothing goes wrong, as always. But this time, I notice, because he’s looking straight at me. His eyes have glazed over.

“Ellis?”

“My lady,” he lowers his bald head. “Please follow me.”

He paces ahead in a perfect balance between silence and speed. I don’t normally notice him standing or moving ― servants aren’t meant to be conspicuous― and this pace is probably why.

Out of the hallway, down the stairs, across the entrance, behind the living room, to the west of the great hall, there’s a small hook that comes out of the floor. Ellis pulls it with his finger. Pulling the hook opens a trapdoor small enough for one person at a time to walk through. I enter first. Well, Ellis lets me enter first. After descending a cramped flight of stairs in close to pitch blackness, we get to the kitchen. Appropriate. We’re next to the great hall. Servants hustle through the stoves and ovens, picking up foodstuffs from the trapdoor we walked through.

We walk left along the hall, which is made of stone and is being lit by concealed candles. We pass the laundry room. Silver-polishing stations. A hub for cleaning equipment. 

In a corner, there’s another of these metal hooks. 

“My lady…” he gestures me towards them. He’s standing in the back, making sure nothing goes wrong. His eyes aren’t done glazing over. I might hear him sniff. 

If Wilhelmina could trust me not to murder her, I can trust Ellis not to murder me.

I tiptoe towards the hook, ensuring that no one will see me. Will regret this? I’m in too deep.

I open the door. 

I’m traveling down the narrowest staircase that God ever set His face on, more narrow than the last one…

One a child could fit through…

Concealed candles light the stone hallway. Eight to ten year old children pace around me.

But I have to look down to see their exhausted and dirty faces.


	28. Night 44

I’m a noblewoman, so I easily held my place at the nearby inn. I paid Jacqueline a good sum, and she gave me a good room. I have a clean bed and fireplace with a bedside table. That’s enough for one night.

I lay down face-first on my bed. Now that I know I have to get to London and how to get there (roughly), how does what Ellis showed me fit into this?

Let’s assume the Queen has not lied about her dreams and they were located in past Gelvishire. Let’s also assume that what Ellis showed me under the kitchen was not misleading. What does it mean? How could Ellis have known about it? Does it have to do with the secret he told me about?

The information is dangling like puzzle pieces waiting to be attached but unsure of their place. My subconscious is yelling at me. 

Wait ― 

Where’s Ellis?

“Ellis!” I shout. 

“Ellis!”

“Ellis!” 

“Shut up,” Jacqueline calls from the entrance. 

The air is thinner without him, and one less shadow darkens the floors.

“Ellis!”

“...”

“Ellis?”

He would have come if he could. If he’s not here, there must be a reason.

The snow reaches my knees. I trudge through it as if it was a bog. The cold numbs my skin. It’s too cold to smell anything, even the inn I left. I can barely see outside. It’s a new moon. The only luminance comes from the candle I took from my room.

“Ellis!”

“Ellis!”

I don’t care if I get frostnip, or if my foot is eaten by a wolf, or if the trek drives me insane. I need to find him. If he’s gone, he isn’t gone of his own volition. I step on a sharp rock in the soil under the snow. A spike of pain shoots up my leg, but numbness takes over. I need to find him.

Wind extinguishes the candle. Damn. It had just started melting into my hand.

The darkness gives me a thought: But what if he didn’t want to come?

Of course he would come! He’s my ―

But he is more, just as Lu was and Wilhelmina is, he has a self! Hopes and fears and desires and even interests and personality.

He served me for years, and I can’t give him the basic respect of allowing him a self. He waited for me, listened to me, followed me, catered to me, saved me, kidnapped for me, but I can’t allow him a self. His entire existence has been relegated to my whim, yet I never allowed him a self.

What is wrong with me?

If I follow him and he goes away, I’ll know it was his choice. But even if it kills me, a twelve-year-old girl, alone at night, marching through the snow as my feet turn dark and my legs turn wooden, I need to find out what happened to him.

The sun has not risen, but its light shines on the evergreens, making them look less monotonous than the thousands of trees I passed on the way back home. Sunlight makes sharp shadows on the thinning snow, accentuating the oscillations of the ground. I keep walking and looking down as the sun crawls up the firmament. The peaks and troughs of the ground are much more ―

Clothes. Ellis’s clothes. The same dark blue with gold buttons down the center of his coat, and the same leather trousers with his undergarments. They lay on a frosted evergreen. He must be nearby, but his lack of clothes necessitates that something horrible happened to him.

I walk around the adjacent evergreens, creating concentric circles of evergreens around the central one with his clothes on it. I trip on a rock, but the softness of the snow and the numbness of my knee stop it from hurting. It doesn’t feel right.

It doesn’t look right either. This rock I stepped on is a dark brown, even darker than the soil under the snow, and it’s much smoother than any stone or soil.

As I move my foot, I see more rock under. More rock. A pittance of hairs.

I dig into the snow.

It is Ellis.

He is dead.

Walking with Ellis on my back is more grueling than the way there. I expected Ellis to emanate body heat, but hours seeped in the snow has taken that out of him. He’s probably dead. Probably. Any chance of life, and I have to save him.

My gut tells me to take him to the inn, even though I can see home on top of a nearby hill. I don’t know how he ended up underground, but he should probably be where no one expects him, including himself. If someone wants to harm him, they won’t expect him at an inn. He’s my steward, so he should be home waiting on me, who is also ostensibly at home. 

His blue, hard fingers cross with mine as his naked corpse sprawls across my back. The wind bites us both. My steps are heavy, heavier when multiplied with Ellis’s weight. I only smell pine; it’s too cold to smell much else. My mouth is dry for an atmosphere of cold water. My line of vision is white.


	29. Day 44

The sun rises. It pours light onto the snow, creating a luminous fog. I’m scared his feet will fall off from the cold, but I’d rather him without feet than dead.

Peasants in the distance cheer, but my mind is too foggy to figure out why. I don’t think they’re jeering at me. Either I’m too far away, or they must be more used to people carrying naked corpses on their backs. I deserve any insults they give me, anyway.

An owl hoots. Silence follows long afterward. Wolves do not leave their dens. It’s just me, alone, with someone who’s probably dead. If so, I’ll miss his dulcet baritone that evoked a monastic fountain, his looming stature like a father eagle, his gangling arms that were always covered by his cuffed sleeves, his long, spider-like fingers and bony wrists, his umber-colored, clean-shaven head with a little flat part in the back I touched sometimes, and the wing he placed over me when I wasn’t looking, when I was asleep.

“You ordered a room, left at midnight, disturbed the whole inn, stole my candle, and return with a naked corpse on your back.”

“For him.”

“For a corpse. I am not giving a room from someone who needs it to someone who is dead.”

“ _ Maybe _ dead.”

“Look at him! There’s no life left.”

“If there’s any chance at saving him, I’m going to do it.”

“Other people that need to be at this inn. Giving other folks’ space up to a corpse is despicable.”

“I don’t care.”

“Then leave!”

I leave to my room. I drop Ellis’s frigid cadaver on my made bed, which wets the blankets. If he’s frostbitten, I’ll need a doctor. I pull the blankets from under him and tuck him in. I resist the urge to sing him a lullaby. 

“Is there a doctor?” I ask.

Whatever. If he needs something cut off, I’ll deal with it later. I’ve got to get him something to drink if he gets up.

I enter the hallway that connects the inn’s suites. Extinguished candles watch me from the walls. In the middle of the hallway, I walk through a fork to follow the aroma of dough into to the kitchen. It looks like a smaller version of the kitchen at home, with one stove and one pantry. I grab tea leaves from a stone cylinder and heat them up in boiling water. If I wait for the tea, I’ll fall asleep, so can’t wait for this because then I’ll fall asleep, so I make my way back into the central hub of the inn. I bump into someone. 

“Sorry,” Jacqueline walks past me. The world wobbles under me. 

I go back to the stove, and the tea is done. I’ll die of thirst, but the tea isn’t mine. It’s not for me. It’s not for me. I walk through the corridor and into the hub and through the next corridor in the route of rooms. It’s not for me. I feel like the roof will bump into my head.

But the tea isn’t for me.

I set it at Ellis’s bedside table and ensure there’s a fire. 

Good night. 

I see those stone corridors from the dreams again. This time, I’m looking, not acting, not playing a character, but standing at an elevated angle. 

Hundreds of children rush through the corridor, all with Ellis’s face. 

Good morning. The sun is in the middle of the sky. Ellis is in the middle of my priorities. I rose too fast. Now I’m woozy. 

Ellis is still dead. I don’t know what would have changed. His gentle features are still there. It’s a shame I’ll never hear his voice again. 

I smell his tea, which is too cold now. I’ll have to get him more after I get him new blankets. I open the door and some light creeps in from the hall.

“Mmmmmm.”

His eyes flutter open and squint. 

“Don’t get up. There’s tea on the bedside table. You’re safe.”

He sits up anyway, spreading his long, gangly fingers across glassy eyes.

“My lady,” his face falls and he loses track of his breath.

He lifts his face, looking past me. “I am sorry,” he mutters. “I should not have shown you the underground. I am merely your servant. Please forgive me.”

Wait. I think I’ve got it. 

OH.




GOD. 

“Ellis―”

“My lady―”

“Tell me if this sounds right.”

“?”

“On the King’s Day, Queen Maria rebelled against King James by co-opting the nobles’ guards. Then, King James made a secret deal with the nobility. His goals must have been to ensure the future loyalty of the Queens, his servants, and the nobility’s servants, including guards.

“How do you establish the servants’ loyalty? You have to make the servants match your interests exactly. But you can’t make people match your interests exactly.

“Well, you can.

“The easiest people to influence are children. In a kingdom, there are plenty! Orphans. Children of prisoners. Children of criminals. Prisoners of war.

“We take these children and indoctrinate them to obey not the nobles, not the Queen, but the King first. That way, all servants become perfectly loyal to the King. No more assassinations. No more disloyalty. Especially among servants of the nobility.

“Of course, us nobles aren’t going to be very happy with that. Our servants need to follow our orders, not the King’s. So King James makes this deal that the indoctrination happens under our basements to give us the illusion of control.

“Now we’ve taken care of the servants. How do we deal with the Queens? We follow Wilhelmina’s advice: a woman is a servant to her husband. We ensure the loyalty of the Queens by making them servants to the Kings, which means these two plans for loyalty ― from the Queens and the servants ― are the same. 

“In the process of melding children into servants, the King's men find a prospective servant girl attractive and competent enough to make a decent Queen. After graduating, she is crowned Queen.

“There. We have ensured total loyalty to the royalty, awful foreign policy aside. The only question is, why have we not noticed sooner? If they’re right under me and I’ve lived home my whole life, then why have I not seen this?

“Right?”

Ellis is catatonic. He does nothing but stare at the ceiling. It has little stones protruding from its surface, falling along with his tears.

I wish I could help him. 

Maybe I can. When I get all caught up in these winds of thought, then all I need to do is ―

“What’s your name?”

He’s breathing too loudly to answer. 

“Can I hold your hand?” 

He brings it out reluctantly. I grip his cold fingers. 

“How does it feel?”

His breath quivers. “Warm, my lady,” he mutters.

“Is it soft or hard?”

He groans, and he huffs and puffs till he could blow us away. “Soft, my lady.”

“How does the blanket feel? Is it rough? Soft?”

“Warm and soft, my lady.”

“How does the bed feel?”

“So hard and cold…” It shouldn’t be like that. Something’s not right.

“Ellis, I need you to get out of bed.” 

He can’t do that, so I grab him and drop him on my back. He’s slightly less frigid than when he was dead. I run to the adjacent room’s closet. The room is occupied by an old guy, but he’s not in bed right now, so I say “sorry” and drop Ellis, whose back is hard and cold as ice, on this bed. The old guy spits at me and leaves. 

I pull his blanket over him and light the room’s fireplace. 

“How does this bed feel?”

“Hard and cold…”

“How does my hand feel?”

“It’s warm and soft, my lady.”

“And how does the blanket feel?”

“It’s warm and soft, m’lady. I can feel the...itches...it itches.” He’s right. The hay blankets are awful. They are for commoners. What matters, though, is that he’s picking up on sensations.

“How does the bed feel?”

“It’s warm...and hard, but not as cold as before, my lady. Thank you, my lady.”

“How does the pillow feel under you?”

“So soft, my lady. So soft I could sink into it, away, away, away…” and he stops and sobs. 

“Ellis, what’s your name?”

“It doesn’t matter, my lady.” The answer came suddenly, automatically, reflexively. It’s programmed.

“What’s your name?” I ask. 

“It doesn’t matter, my lady.” He yells it.

“Ellis, since you started as my steward, you’ve been by my side, done everything for me, obeyed me, listened to my tirades, my dreams, my worries. In return, I’ve done nothing but abuse you. I’m sorry that it took me four years to learn that you matter. Your name matters. I love you to the end of the world and back. I want you alive and well. So what’s. Your. Name?”

“Ellis, my lady.”

“What’s your name?”

“Ellis, my lady.”

“What’s your name?”

He says it, faster and calmer every time. “Ellis, my lady.”

“What do you see?”

“The fire, my lady. And...my lady.”

My lady, he calls me. As if he’s mine. 

His face, bathing in tears, stops me from thinking about my noble family, my wealth, my heritage. I can only think about my complicity.

“I’m not your lady. You don’t belong to me. I am Cordelia.”

“Ellis, who are you?”

His eyes are glossing over. He stares at the ceiling and chokes up. “I don’t know.” He sniffs. “I don’t know.”

Of course. He has no self.  _ He has no self because we took it from him. _ We, the nobility, were too busy making our trade deals and vying for power and jousting and sleeping to find that we are the monster under the covers. 

It’s so easy to see a trapdoor under the kitchen that  _ anyone could open _ , but we do nothing but hire an artisan to play our clavichord, eat, be merry, and drink ourselves to bed without taking a peek under the covers at what we’ve been denying.

“I can never be forgiven for what I did to you. I abused you. I enslaved you. Consider yourself free from me in all respects. You can never talk to me again if you like. You can run to Baghdad. Whatever you do, I am so. So.  _ So _ sorry for every word I said to you and every interaction I had with you and every thought that passed through my mind about you. 

“But first, I need to make sure you’re healthy. I’ll get your tea from the kitchen, and I’ll go home to get you some clothes.”


	30. Night 45

The teacup’s empty.

It’s been six hours since I left. I drank some beer, and retrieved for Ellis a woolen cotehardie and trousers, a cloak, and clean leather shoes, all from my father’s closet since Ellis is at least a foot taller than Harold. I changed my dress into one with thicker wool, added a silk veil and surcoat, and procured a bag of coins to pay for several inns for the coming months.

“Ellis…”

He’s staring into space.

“Ellis, you here?”

That snaps him out of it. He looks at me and looks away.

“I got you clothes. Good night.”

The Queen, blindfolded, is pulled out of a carriage. She has been riding for a month, but it only feels like a week. She has been stuffed. Her hunger pangs have been replaced with a stomach ready to explode, and regurgitated food lines the crevices of the carriage. There is more of her than a month ago.

The King’s men strip her and dunk her in the frigid river. They scrub her down without regard for her skin. The sun focuses its heat on her body, making the river too cold and too hot at the same time. Luckily, she is too tired to be anything but numb.

No longer can she trust anyone. Philip and Lu were taken from her, too distant to be anything but illusions. She is ― she doesn’t know. A collection of experiences? Nothing.

They pick her up again, cover and blindfold her with new fabrics, drop her in the carriage, and continue their voyage.

Hours later, the carriage stops, and the King’s men carry her up flights of stairs. They drop her on a bed, take off her blindfold, and leave.

A knot forms in her stomach: everything is new. The cloudlike bed, the chamber pot under it, the window into the flowery courtyard, the moonlight peering in, and the boudoir in the corner are alien to her, who has never before left the stone corridors under the Gelvy abode. 

Three women take out a dress with gaudy fur linings, a red velvet body, and a white headdress. It looks two times too large for the Queen. They murmur something about the King saying this fits her measurements, and this will flatter her figure, so they pulled the dress onto her. After sewing its back together, the dress tightly pinches her torso.

At the wedding-coronation, when the rituals have been performed, the right lines have been recited, and the Queen has walked the right way that the guests could ooh and aah and become enraptured by her new beauty, too enraptured know her pain, she plasters her smile to match the makeup the women pounded on her face and on the scars on the palms of her hands, so that when she waved, no one could see the secret. 

The Queen would often meander through royal apple orchards, caressing the apples in a habit of re-traumatization, feeling the apple rub against the disfigurements on her hands. Without fail, the apple would bring back old memories, and past dread would bleed into the present. And without fail, she would feel the apple accentuate her old wounds, and she would wish for those scars to disappear.

One day, when she dreads and wishes long enough, the apple in her hand shrivels and dies, and the scars on her hands no longer exist.

The next day, she re-enters the apple orchard. She again holds an apple, and with the awful power of apple-summoned dread, she wishes that the scars on her back would disappear. That apple dies, and the scars leave baby-soft skin behind.

She tries removing the scars on her legs with a displayed suit of armor that reminds her of Lucian, but her legs would not heal. She tries again using the grass surrounding the royal garden. This attempt fails as well. Only when she uses the apples’s emotional weight do her scars disappear. 

She reasons through these trials that the apple-magic comes from three things: life, emotions, and will. A non-living object holds no magic, as in the case of the emotionally resonant suit of armor that nevertheless did not take away the Queen’s scars. She cannot perform magic if she lacks emotive will, such as in the case of the grass with no emotional weight. As opposed to murdering people, then, she must use apples for her magic. 

What can she  _ not _ do now?

Four years later, she holds an apple tree and lets panic flow through. Focusing on an eight-year-old memory from underground, she thinks, let this come into someone’s mind ― a noble; young enough to be naïve, but old enough to make choices; from somewhere adjacent to Gelvishire to ensure finding Lucian would be relatively easy ― let this come into their mind through a dream. 

The apples fall, rotting and dead. The tree wilts into obsolescence.


	31. Day 45

She can answer those questions, but not any more? Why did she do this and not take revenge on the Grandfather or the King and his family? What will she do after I meet her? What is she going to do to me? Why do I care what suit of armor she didn’t use to eliminate her leg scars?

Well. She has no reason to kill me. Whatever she wants, I must give.

“Ellis, I’m ready to leave for the Queen. You can stay here, go back home, run away to the other side of the globe, do what you want. If you want to follow me, I’ll be walking due south. Safe travels.”

I gather some soup from the kitchen and situate it on his bedside table.


	32. Night 46

It’s midnight. I roll in bed for the hundredth time. 

Knock. Knock. I get up and open the door.

It’s Ellis.

“My lady,”

“Don’t call me that.”

“I need you.”

“For what?”

“To hold my hand.”

“Do you want to talk?”

He doesn’t answer.

“You can tell me anything you want. I won’t tell anyone.”

He bites his tongue.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to. You’re not my slave anymore.” I lock my gaze in his eyes. “You’re safe with me.”

He purses his lips, but he can’t hold it in anymore. “I want nothing to do with you,” he blurts out. He checks if I’m listening and sits on the bed.

“You’ve taken everything from me. You took my life when I served you, and you took my will to live when I told you the secret, and you drained me with the talk of your ‘dreams’ that were glimpses of a reality you could never fathom and I could never forget.”

“But in the bed, when I returned to the Sanctuary after death, you held my hand. You brought me back. You saved me.

“I hate you. But I need you.”

I pull the blanket from under him and cover him. He pushes himself into a sitting position and bumps his head into the ceiling. The back is too cold to lay on the stone wall, so I try sitting up straight.

Ellis is short of breath.

“Nonononono―”

Ellis screams.

“Ellis?”

He cries. “My back hurts. It’s so cold ―”

“Do you need my hand?”

“I was never supposed to wake up again. I was supposed to be safe ― they would never get me ― under the snow I would be safe―”

“Feel my hand. Is it warm?”

I sit on the bed, gripping Ellis’s hand.

“Ellis?”

“Your hand is warm.”

“Is the blanket warm?”

“The blanket is warm…”

“Can you lay down?”

He slides down the bed and falls asleep. I collapse face-first into bed.


	33. Day 46

“Thank you for holding my hand last night,” Ellis says.

“I don’t remember doing that.”

“You were asleep.”


	34. Night 86

He asks me, “be with me, next to me.”

Well, that’s new.

“Next to me,” he keeps muttering.

I wiggle closer and hold my hand on his chest; I breathe with him and feel his body, and we become warm under the blanket.

“Thank you,” he says.


	35. Day 86

My hand wraps around the doorknob. I lean on the door.

“Ellis?”

“?”

“If you don’t want to, that’s fine, but you can come if you like.”

“I’d rather not,” he mutters. “I’m an outlaw and a traitor to the Crown. And I don’t want to go back…” He breathes. “... _ there _ .”

“Thank you for telling me. Stay safe.”

I almost open the door until I realize I might not see him again. I pivot towards him.

“Can I ask you a question before I go?”

He pauses. “Maybe.”

“Do you mind telling me why you showed me?”

“Weakness,” he answers. “I couldn’t take it. I was weak.”

“No, Ellis. To go through what you did and open yourself up takes strength. Tremendous strength.

“Can I touch your shoulders?”

He shakes his head no. I oblige.

“You might never see me alive again, so know this. Every day you wake up, everyone you love, every tear you elicit is another act of strength. 

“You may never forgive me for what I’ve done to you, and that’s fine. But I love you, Ellis.”

I close the door behind me.

I’m going to throw up. 

Royal guards cross their spears in front of the castle gates. Through the sharp spears, the three lions on the royal coat of armor, and the threat of endless guards try intimidating me, the sights that can’t escape me, though invisible, are the guards’ bloodshot, sagging eyes beneath their helmets.

“Why are you here?”

A woman runs out of one of the turrets. “At ease!” The guards uncross their spears and let her through. “The Queen desires her.” 

“It’s exactly what she told me you look like. My lady, follow me.”

I follow her through the guards and the gate into the courtyard. Roses, foxgloves, poppies, and flowers of all sorts fill the bushes that are symmetrically arranged in each quadrant of the expansive space. The stone floors and walls are clothed in mosses, grasses, and vines.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Nauseating, mostly. When I look at the roses and flowers in the bushes, I can’t help but think about the slaves who planted it. Standing on the stone slabs that compose the ground reminds me of the slaves who built it. I don’t answer her question. A thorn stabs me in the foot.

Once we arrive at the central hall and continue rightward, the lady says, “The Queen is waiting for you.”

A knot builds in my stomach.

I open her bedroom door. walk through the doorway and there she is, laying in her bed, waiting.

“Sit,” she says. She has a chair set up for me, and I oblige.

The Queen is unrecognizable from her memories. Her hair has lightened, her skin has gained color, and she has become pleasantly plump. She might look healthy if her eyes weren’t sunken in. 

“Well, well, well,” the Queen says as she sits up in her bed. Her voice is as breathy and fast as ever. “I recognize you from the visions. Your name is…” she beckons. 

“Cordelia, your Majesty.”

“House of…”

“Restor, Your Majesty.”

“Cordelia of House Restor, do you know why I brought you here?”

“No, your Majesty.”

…

“Why, your Majesty?”

“I need you to take me to Philip.”


	36. Night 86

I can’t sleep.

The Queen took the only bed in the suite, leaving Ellis and I on the floor. Though we have agreed to be each other’s warmth, Ellis is no replacement for a blanket. I arise.

In my insominacal pacing around the Queen’s bed, I find a sheen on her bedside table.

It’s a knife. She’s going to kill me.

Wait. The death she desires must be her own. Her life has been tragedy after tragedy. Every moment returns her to her agonizing youth. Despite her status as a Queen, she has no power other than optics. The person who rules over her, her husband, her King, controls the Grandfather system that ruined her life. She is essentially a machine, a means to an end. A tool for those who enslaved her. She must feel it isn’t worth it for her to live. 

I sneak out of the inn and bury the knife in the snow with a smile. I did it! I saved the Queen!


	37. Day 136

The Queen covers her face with a hood. Ellis bites his lip.

Knock. Knock. I introduce myself as Wilhelmina’s sister-in-law and Ellis and the Queen as my stewards. A maître d’ welcomes us inside. 

Ellis and the Queen follow me into the Great Hall. The Gelvys’ manor is spotless. No one else is inside to appreciate the slaves’ eerily productive work. We continue leftward until the Queen finds a hook in an inconspicuous corner on the floor. 

“Ellis,” I insist, “I’d advise that you don’t go down here.”

“Thank you. I’ll stay up here.”

I ask the Queen, “You sure about this?” 

“Anything for my love,” she replies.

She pulls on the hook to open a trapdoor. The Queen and I sneak down those thin, dank, dark, narrow stairs. 

“Philip?” she calls.

“Yes, my lady?” is his breathy answer.

“Do you recognize me?”

I follow the Queen down the staircase to the relatively well-lit underground. Through the bustle of the enslaved people’s work, Philip’s sapphire eyes, elflike chin, and perfect ringlets, though shorter than in the dreams, are impossible to miss. He sees her face ― bites his tongue ― and says, “No, my lady.”

“It’s me, Margaret!” His lower lip quivers. “We went to the…the shirt, the cold floors, the Sanc―”

Philip rubs his bloodshot eyes. They are inflamed, exploding, wet. His breath is shaky. I hear him muttering something.

_ Iamamachineiserveiamamachineiserve _

He squeezes his wrist so hard it turns white. 

He’s  _ there _ . 

I ask him, “Philip, what do you see?”

“It’s Maggie. But...but...a different Maggie. It can’t be then, but he’s on me now and I’m nothing―”

“What’s your name?”

“Philip, my lady.”

“What can you smell?” 

“Cold, cold, cold―”

“Philip, it’s 1410. You are safe now. You are safe now. I’m here. You are safe now. Say that with me.”

“I am safe now, I am safe now, but I’m not.”

“No one is hurting you. You are with the one you love. Maggie is here for you.”

“Maggie is here for me, Maggie is here for me, Maggie is here for me, Maggie is here...for me…” his breathing slows.

“Maggie is here for me, breathe in. Maggie is here for me, breathe out.”

“Maggieishereforme” he inhales “Maggie is here...for me,” he exhales. 

“Let go of your wrists.” He obliges. “It’s 1410. No one is hurting you.”

He breathes out slowly, opens his eyes to the Queen, and says, “It’s you, Maggie. Can we touch?”

She steps toward him. They lock arms and look at each other for a long time. 

“I’m the Queen now. I’m still Maggie, but with a crown,” Margaret whispers. “I came to see you one last time.”

Margaret concedes a tear. Philip gulps at a loss for words.

“Can I tell you something?”

Margaret unlocks her arms from his and nods.

“Returning to you is the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” Philip concedes. “but I miss Lucian. I don’t know where he’s been. I don’t know what happened to him. Please tell me he’s okay.”

“I miss him too. Unfortunately, he’s in a rough spot, but I know how to get him back.”

“Please bring him back. I want him back,” he cries. 

The Queen takes a knife from a fold in her dress and stabs herself in the gut. 


	38. Day 144

“And her blood spurted and Philip fainted…I wanted to save her, bring her to her love, create a happily ever after, be the one to save the children. But I can’t save them. The story is over. I’m not a hero.”

Wilhelmina sits on my bed and leans her hand on my shoulder. “You’re not a hero. I learned that when you tried to kill me. But you don’t have to save the children your way.

“It’s not all about you. I hope you've learned that, whether through the love the Queen showed Philip, or the love Ellis has shown you, or the patience I’ve been granting you despite you trying to kill me, or my betrothal to your prick of a brother. Even when you do the best you can, it’s worth nothing if you always put yourself first.

“Speaking of taking care of people, I have a Lucian I need to feed, so if you’ll be a moment―”

“Lucian?”

“About a week ago, he stopped being a candle.”

About a week ago, the Queen died. When she died, she no longer held emotive will, so her spell over Lucian stopped. That’s how she brought him back: by dying.

Lucian waddles into my room and holds Wilhelmina’s hand. 

“Lucian, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I forced you to say you’d kill your closest friend. I’m sorry I forced you into the excruciating past you needed to escape.

“Wilhelmina, you’re right. It’s not all about me. I need to save the children, but not in the way I intended. I can’t do it by myself.”

The Great Hall is empty except for the two of us. Rick warms up with arpeggios on his lute. “Sorry, I want to get my technique right.” He does it again. It’s hauntingly beautiful. 

> _ “Right now we are sleeping till we hear this rhyme. _
> 
> _ “Look under the covers, away from your mind. _
> 
> _ “In kitchens and great halls and rooms so sublime, _
> 
> _ “Look under the covers and see what’s behind. _
> 
> _ “Sing what you see to folks aplenty: _
> 
> _ “Artisans, jesters, jokers, and priests. _
> 
> _ “Make melody ring through our land one more time. _
> 
> _ “Look under the covers; see what you’ve designed. _
> 
> _ “Ad nauseam. _

“I think I got through the criteria you wanted. It’s catchy. It’s repetitive. It’s hard to listen to over and over. It’s vague enough that no one will ‘go back there,’ as you say, but specific enough that it elicits curiosity and discomfort about what’s going on.

“What do you think?”

Rick, his lute, Wilhelmina, Ellis, Lucian, and I have set to travel across Britain and sing to her peasants, nobles, and clergy. “You’re sure you want to miss your wedding?” I ask Wilhelmina. 

She laughs. “The idea that I must serve a man I don’t love ― that a wife is subservient to her husband ― that one person is subservient to another ― fuels the monarchist patriarchy we seek to destroy. Why would I feed into the system?”

Hopefully, some naive viscount will sleepwalk into a trapdoor and see the horrors I saw every night for weeks, the horrors Lucian and Ellis see in their waking and sleeping moments, the horrors that killed the Queen, the horrors thousands of children are living through this moment. 

Queen Margaret said the reason for her transmissions was to see Philip one last time. That was only half true. She wanted to end her suffering, yes, but primarily, she sought to end the suffering of the thousands upon thousands of enslaved children in our kingdom. She didn’t just end her nightmares; she materialized them into dreams of a viable future. The purpose of the dreams was to end my slumber, to force me to look under the covers. I must continue her labor.

As we step out of the Restor manor and into the kingdom, I realize this is no longer my story. It was never my story. I am not the hero, nor is anyone. I was never a victim, either. I am merely Margaret’s messenger. Every peasant or priest or noble that sees this and collectively uproars into an inevitable rebellion is a messenger. You, reading this, are a messenger.

As Margaret passed the baton to me, I’m passing the baton to you.

It’s your turn.

**Author's Note:**

>  **If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts:**  
>  You can call 1-800-273-8255 in the US | 1.833.456.4566 in Canada (not Quebec) | 1.866.277.3553 in Quebec | 116-123 in UK & Ireland | text 45645 from 4pm - Midnight ET in Canada
> 
>  **If you are going through a crisis:**  
>  You can text HOME to 741741 (in the US & Canada), 85258 (in the UK), or 50808 (in Ireland)
> 
> Please stay safe!!! You are loved


End file.
